Subnotebook: Judging by Google results (1,660,000) and the presence of a Wikipedia entry, "subnotebook" appears to be one of the most popular and closest-to-legit terms, with a history going back to at least Toshiba's Libretto, according to our friend Mark Spoonauer, editor-in-chief at Laptop. The real sticky point appears to be on the edges—when does a UMPC become a subnotebook, and when does a subnotebook become a real notebook? At 11 inches, Lenovo's IdeaPad U110 is probably the breaking point for subnotebook. In fact, that's our new rule: to classify as a subnotebook or ultraportable (see below), you've gotta be 11 inches or under, and less than 3 pounds. (Sorry Walt, the MacBook Air might be light, but its ginormous, full-notebook footprint means it ain't really a subnotebook in most people's eyes.) Judgment: Like a pair of loafers, "subnotebook" is unsexy, but it gets the job done.

Ultraportable: That's a really tricky term, probably the most amorphous. Spoonauer classifies small notebooks with fuller keyboards and displays like the IdeaPad U110 or HP's Mini-note 2133 as "ultraportables," leaving the "subnotebook" moniker to devices in the UMPC class, like the HTC Shift. However, added confusion comes from the fact that ultraportable sounds like ultramobile, as in UMPC (see below). Still, it's the most compelling alternative to subnotebook, because it sounds sexier, and has over 3 million Google hits alone and 1.27 million tagged to notebook or laptop. The big knock against "ultraportable" is that it redirects to "subnotebook" on Wikipedia. Judgment: I don't mind it, but without a firm identity it'll never be useful. Plus I feel like it's trying too hard.

Mini-Notebook: While "mini notebook" seems like a less popular and unwieldy derivative of "subnotebook," with fewer Google results (1,110,000) and no Wikipedia page (it doesn't even direct back to subnotebook), Spoonauer says that it's distinguished from subnotebook as being the class of small form-factor notebooks that are under $600, like the Eee PC. Judgment: I think this one should be junked, though determining a class on price is probably a good idea.

ULPC: This most generally stands for ultra low-cost PC, though I've seen ultra-light PC, too. (How about that for a red flag?) It isn't overly popular, but it obviously refers to small, cheap notebooks like the Eee or XO OLPC Laptop. While it might be useful in distinguishing the Eee from, say, the pricier U110, overall the term seems pointless, especially when there's already a better alternative. Judgment: Garbage heap.

Netbook: This is actually the brainchild of Intel's marketing department to describe sub-$500 notebooks centered around internet-connectivity, such as its Classmate PC. The original Eee PC, XO OLPC Laptop and Cloudbook would fall into this category. While it is technically flackspeak, I actually like it because it's short and fairly specific. Besides being endorsed by Intel (obvs), Ubuntu has officially picked up the term. Judgment: A keeper, even if it was coined by the Man.

UMPC: The term stands for ultra-mobile PC, and actually has fairly concrete origins in the Project Origami catastrophe headed up by Microsoft. Under Intel and Microsoft's guidelines, technically the form factor is defined as touchscreen mini-tablet smaller than eight inches with a resolution of at least 800 pixels wide. However, we (and most others) include the OQO in this category. Even though it doesn't have a touchscreen, it otherwise fits the slabby form factor to a T. Update: To be clear, the OQO has an active digitizer, not a touchscreen. It won't recognize your finger, you need a special stylus. Judgment: Works, we just have to disabuse people of using it in reference to stuff like the Eee.

Conclusion
Hopefully focusing on three terms that bear the least ambiguity will help with this confusion. Here's where you guys come in, since believe it or not, we do like standards. So while UMPC has dried to a firm, tasty shell, Netbook and subnotebook are still pretty jelly-like. Or maybe you'd prefer ultraportable to subnotebook? Should low-cost dwarfish notebooks be called netbooks, or is there a better term? Help us clean up this semantic cesspool.

Microsoft Mac BU Delivers Strongest Launch in History of Office for Mac

Group releases Service Pack 1, announces the return of Visual Basic for Applications in next version.

REDMOND, Wash. — May 13, 2008 — Microsoft Corp.'s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today announced details about the success of Office 2008 for Mac and reaffirms its commitment to future products for the Mac. Office 2008 launched at Macworld Expo 2008, and sales for the productivity suite continue to soar, selling faster than any previous version of Office for Mac in the past 19 years. The Mac BU developed Office 2008 to help Mac users simplify their work with a Mac-like interface, tools to easily create professional documents, and, most notably, the most cross-platform compatible suite on the market for the Mac. The Mac BU today is releasing Service Pack 1 (SP1) that provides increased stability, security and performance enhancements to the suite. The group also is providing a glimpse at the road map of Office for Mac by announcing the return of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in the next version.

"The response has been amazing — since we launched in January, the velocity of sales for Office 2008 is nearly three times what we saw after the launch of Office 2004," said Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft. "As we set our course for future versions, we are working closely with customers and will also expand our staff to ensure that Office for Mac remains the most powerful and compatible productivity suite for Mac customers."

Office 2008 for Mac Gets Updates Requested by Users

The Mac BU consistently seeks and uses customer feedback to identify, prioritize and then improve its products through beta programs in pre-release stages. The team looks to user forums and tools such as the Microsoft Error Reporting Protocol (MERP), which allows customers to anonymously communicate issue reports, once a product is launched. With the launch of SP1, the Mac BU is addressing the top issues as reported by customers via MERP and other feedback channels. Office 2008 for Mac SP1 features key suitewide updates for increased stability, increased security and overall performance improvements. Users also will find application-specific updates, including the following:

Microsoft Office Excel

· Compatibility. Improved compatibility with files exchanged between Excel 2008 for Mac and Excel 2003 and Excel 2007 for Windows

· Custom Error Bars. Restored formatting option on the Error Bars panel for data series

· Printing. More reliable printing for elements on Excel 2008 workbooks

Microsoft Entourage

· Calendar. Significant enhancements to improve calendar view and all-day reminders with reoccurrence

· Exchange Server support. Overall improvement to synchronization support, including removing attachments from Exchange Server messages and synchronizing to the server, as well as support for editing the contents of Exchange Server messages via AppleScript and synchronizing the changes to the server

· E-mail images. Ability to send and view images in Entourage from third-party tools

Microsoft Office Word

· Printing. Improved accuracy when orienting tables with cell shading

· Document map. Improved reliability and responsiveness to select items

· Notebook layout. Updated formatting, recording status and a variety of display options

Microsoft Office PowerPoint

· Printing. Improvements to eliminate crashing when printing documents to high-dpi printers and increased overall printing speed by 10 times on some large presentations

· Mobile viewing. Ability to view Mac .PPTX files on Windows Mobile phones

· AppleScript. Ability to use the PowerPoint selection object in AppleScript to implement custom scripts that operate on the current selection in PowerPoint

Customers can download the update for free at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx1, and it will be also available from Microsoft Auto Update.

VBA Returns to Future Versions of Office for Mac

The Mac BU also announced it is bringing VBA-language support back to the next version of Office for Mac. Sharing information with customers as early as possible continues to be a priority for the Mac BU to allow customers to plan for their software needs.2 Although the Mac BU increased support in Office 2008 with alternate scripting tools such as Automator and AppleScript — and also worked with MacTech Magazine to create a reference guide, available at http://www.mactech.com/vba-transition-guide — the team recognizes that VBA-language support is important to a select group of customers who rely on sharing macros across platforms. The Mac BU is always working to meet customers' needs and already is hard at work on the next version of Office for Mac.

All editions include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. The $400 "standard" edition also has Microsoft Server Exchange support and Automator actions. The $500 Special Media edition has all of that plus Microsoft Expression Media, formerly iView, a program for managing and processing vast batches of 100 different media types.

If you're a cheapskate with a conscience like me, though, you'll be happy to hear that the former "Students and Teachers" edition has been renamed "Home and Student" edition. That means you can pay just the $150 for the four key programs without making up some excuse that you're going back to school for some sort of "adult education."

The biggest advantage of the new Office is that it runs great on the MacBook Pro. After experiencing some crashiness with the old Microsoft Word, I decided to make iWork my default word processor, but compatibility still takes an extra step (you have to Export to Word). My wife is an Office for Mac veteran, and while she hasn't experienced too many stability issues with Word, she finds instability when working in the old PowerPoint, especially with Excel data. She's committed to Office for the long haul, never gonna touch iWork, and I like Office features, like that damn style paintbrush, which comes in handy when you're doing a lot of cut-and-paste. So in my house, a new Office arrival is good news indeed. Needless to say, this Office suite, even in beta, has been nice and stable to date.

My favorite new feature, one of those Mac-only treats, is My Day, which goes with Entourage but is a free-floating purplish-blue standalone app. It is what it sounds like, a little calendar that show you what's on tap. But you can add To-Do's directly to it, and check them off as you go through your day, almost like it was scratch paper. I can use all the to-do I can get, and this has been a big help.

I have to say that when Office 2007 for Windows came out last year, I was a little miffed by the tab interface. I was happy to see that Office 2008 for Mac doesn't follow suit. As you can see from the Word screenshot above, you still have all the familiar ways of finding things, as well as new animated tabs for adding graphics, tables and all sorts of other stuff.

PowerPoint users like my wife will be happy about compatibility with Apple Remote and a "send to iPhoto" feature that save slideshows directly to iPhoto for auto-syncing with an iPod.

Excel nerds get their patience rewarded with more than 1 million rows and 16,000 columns, equal to that of Windows Office 2007. Also, there's a new Formula Builder for people like me who need a little help inserting calculators and stuff. (Usually I just call my wife, who's a total Excel freak.)

As one of the last living humans who uses Hotmail, I was glad to see that the new Messenger for Mac 6 was integrated into the suite. I don't use the messenger (the Mac version doesn't really pack much in the way of multimedia messaging) but I like having the rapid-fire new-mail notifications.

I wish I could say the same for Hotmail support in Entourage. It's sad, but when I loaded up my account info, it downloaded 474 of my oldest emails and refused to go any further, leaving something like 30,000 messages stranded on the server. I inquired about this, as part of my zeal for the new Office was having a pleasant way to manage Hotmail on the Mac. All I got was the cold hard fact that nobody in Redmond cares about Hotmail anymore. The official word: "Improved Hotmail functionality in Entourage was not a main focus for the new version." Don't worry, Hotmail team—wherever you are in that nest of cubicles, fire off a flair and we'll send someone to rescue you. Office is a massive suite, and I haven't had the time to explore every nook and cranny yet. I can say that I will be using it going forward, and will investigate any issues that arise. I know many of you already have the beta. Well, now that you're free to talk about it (trust me, you are), I'd like to encourage you to share your comments below—maybe you've discovered some dark underbelly that we haven't found yet. [Mac Office 2008; The Three Editions]

The distinguished group of scientists who created the Pterosaur say it only used a quarter tank of fuel, anticipating more world records to be broken with this plane that has a range of 310 miles. Powered by the hydrogen fuel cell similar to the one inside the HyFish jet wing aircraft we told you about last April, the scientists are emboldened with this record-breaking performance, and say there are even more sophisticated fuel cell power plants for aircraft on the way. [Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies]

The iPhone's lack of copy, cut and paste capabilities is enough to cripple any word processor, but even without that, gOffice still creates documents that can be opened and edited in Microsoft Word. A complaint some users have expressed is that gOffice's file sizes are way too big, nearly a deal killer, especially for those with 4GB iPods. We'll test out the app, and tell you how it goes.

iPhone gets a (basic) word-processor [My iTablet]

Here's what else is new:

• Confirmed in-line viewer for PDFs, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel docs in email. Microsoft complained about lack of support before. This is a huge deal, even if it is read-only.
• Turning off the phone requires you to slide your finger across the top (like unlocking it) to confirm.
• You can rewind voicemail like a sound file.
• You can finger-scroll through contacts using the alphabet on the right.
• The special iPhone headphones have volume and call control.
• IMAP/POP support confirmed
• Typing with two thumbs actually looks manageable
• Limited amount of ringtones can be selected from the settings menu. Doesn't look like songs can be used.
• Confirmed turn by turn directions and up-to-date traffic info for Google maps.
– Jason Chen

This is a truly odd design which looks like a pipe coming up out of your desk, but gives you a quick answer when someone asks what time it is: "Well, it's about three," you'll say. We're thinking it's about time somebody came up with a unique clock design like this one. Too bad that uniqueness comes with a $160 price tag. – Charlie White

Product Page [Uncommon Goods, via Coolest Gadgets]

NSFW! – Jason Chen

Phone Sex Pranks [Thanks Gil!]

To be honest, I don't know which I'm more sick of hearing about, Podcasts or Bird Flu. But I guess the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary didn't want to be alarmist this year and decided to go with "Podcast" as the Word of the Year. Along with Bird Flu, the other runner up was IED (improvised explosive device). Fun.

Podcast is 2005 Word of the Year [Macworld]